Bank Space

Sometimes it is hard to come by places to put your stuff! Today I would like to compare and contrast some different ways of obtaining more space to put your stuff. I will look at buying more bank and bag slots from the Black Lion Trading Post, starting your own guild to obtain a guild bank, and starting mules. I will show you which is currently the cheapest method for getting more bag space, so that you can hang on to all your stuff!

Black Lion Trading Post

Buying another bank slot costs 600 gems. For those 600 gems you get 30 bag slots. At current market values (Dec. 14th, 2012) it would cost you 12 gold to buy those gems. That means that it would cost you 40 silver per bank slot. Also, you can purchase extra bag slots for each of your character which cost 400 gems. At current market values it costs 8 gold to buy those gems.

Bags from the Trading Post

Now I will quickly look at the different options to buy bags from the Trading Post. The smallest bag I will consider is the 15 slot bag, as the other bags cost relatively little (less than I have rounded off in some cases). Currently the cheapest 15 slot, 18 slot and 20 slot bags on the Trading Post are 60 silver, 2 gold, and 12 gold respectively, which means that it costs 4 silver, 11 silver, and 60 silver per bag slot. If, you have to buy an additional bag slot it adds 8 gold to this cost meaning it will cost you 57 silver, 55 silver, and 1 gold per inventory slot.

Guild Bank

A guild can have access to three different levels of a bank. One with 50, 100, or 200 slots. These banks are bought with influence, and the influence can be bought with gold. No matter the quantity of influence you buy it always costs 20c per 1 influence. The 50 slot bank upgrade costs 3000 influence and thus would cost you 6 gold. The 100 slot bank costs an additional 20,000 influence which costs 40 gold. Finally, you can upgrade all the way to the 200 slot bank for an additional 30,000 influence which costs 60 gold. All-in-all the 50 slot bank costs 6 gold, the 100 slot bank costs 46 gold, and the 200 slot bank costs 106 gold, which works out to 12 silver, 46 silver, and 53 silver per slot. It is important to note you can not put your soul bound or account bound items into the guild vault.

Alts and Mules

The cheapest source of bag spaces is going to be your alternate accounts. Just get them through the first story, walk to the racial capital city, and port to Lion's Arch. There you can send them money to buy a couple starter bags (see above for cost break down). Once you have filled all five of your character slots, how much would it cost to add another character just for bag space? The character slot expansion costs 800 gems which would cost you 16 gold to purchase. A new account comes with 5 backpack slots, one of which is already filled with a 20 slot bag. I will consider the costs of filling the other four slots with 15, 18, and 20 slot bags. Four of each of these bags would cost, 2.4 gold, 8 gold, and 48 gold giving you 80, 92, and 100 bag slots respectively. Thus, the cost per slot breaks down as follows, 23 silver, 26 silver, and 64 silver per bag slot.

Summary

Here is a quick summary of all the various ways of obtaining bag slots that I went over above.

Open backpack slot

15 slots, 4 silver/slot

18 slots, 11 silver/slot

20 slots, 60 silver/slot

Purchase backpack slot

15 slots, 57 sliver/slot

18 slots, 55 sliver/slot

20 slots, 100 silver/slot

Extra bank slot

30 slots, 40 silver/slot

Guild bank (No soulbound or account bound items)

50 slots, 12 silver/slot

100 slots, 46 silver/slot

200 slots, 53 silver/slot

Purchase Character

80 slots, 23 silver/slot

92 slots, 26 silver/slot

100 slots, 64 silver/slot

Those were all the ways I could think of to obtain extra inventory space. If you think of any others please let me know. You will have to use the above chart to make the decision for yourself. I personally, started a guild and bought the 50 slot bank. When gems were cheaper I also purchased a number of backpack and bank slots. Now it seems that started a new character just for a mule would be the cheapest way to go. I hope you find this helpful.